Clinton Tells Congress to Curb Bickering

WASHINGTON —  Striving to cool party strife, President Clinton urged members of Congress on Saturday to restrain their personal and partisan bickering as they debate welfare reform.

“It got a little rough last week and a little too personal and partisan,” Clinton said in his weekly radio address. “I . . . want to caution the members of the House to try to tone down the rhetoric.”

After all, he said, everyone agrees that the current welfare system is broken and must be fixed.

“No American wants to continue a system that doesn’t promote work and responsible parenting.”

Highlighting the possibility for a “spirit of cooperation” when dealing with social issues, Clinton commended the House for including child-support enforcement measures he has advocated in its welfare reform package.

That includes using the threat of revoking professional and driver’s licenses to help ensure support payments are made, he said.

“If all of the child support in America that is owed is paid, we could take 800,000 Americans off the welfare rolls,” he said.

“The House has now adopted every major child-support element in my welfare reform bill. If the Senate will follow suit, we’ll mount the toughest crackdown on deadbeat parents ever, and we’ll help more children too.”

But Clinton complained that the House version of the reform bill does little to promote work. He praised Democrats for voting unanimously for an alternative that he said contained tougher work requirements.

Clinton also urged Congress to finish work on legislation giving the President line-item veto authority on spending items embedded in the mammoth appropriation bills it passes each year. “It will bring more discipline to our spending process,” he said.

Responding for Republicans, Sen. Dan Coats of Indiana credited the GOP for energizing the push to give the President authority to veto spending bills item by item.

“There is no doubt that as the Republican Congress leads the way for change, some of those who have been firmly in control for 40 years on Capitol Hill will continue to fight hard to keep the power they once had,” Coats said.

“But the status quo’s grip on power is loosening, and their time is up.”